Save Article

Stock Soothsayers Are Searching
For Clues in Consumer Spending

By

Patrick McGeehan Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated July 1, 1996 11:59 p.m. ET

If you could wear it, smoke it or swallow it, investors wanted a piece of it in the second quarter.

In an about-face from the first quarter, stocks of consumer-product makers made up the best-performing sector in the past three months, outdoing stocks whose fortunes rise and fall with economic cycles. Industry groups that investors rely on to grow steadily through thick and thin led the way, paced by companies that make or sell shoes,...